Cranky Mommy

When I was a little kid most of my nicknames didn’t stick long. A couple of friends called me Kir, but not many. My mom used to call me Ki or Kira Deara and still does, but she is the only one that uses those.
She also used to call me Little Buttinsky which I thought was cute until I grew up and realized it meant little butt-in-sky.
In fourth grade, because I was such a space cadet, a few kids called me Earth To Kira. I didn’t like that much, although it was accurate. And because I used to fuss about the small things, one obnoxious little boy in 4th and 5th grade called me Ms. Picky Picky.
Years later I was watching an epsiode of Big Brother and I noticed an obnoxious guy on the show who looked just like that little boy who teased me in 4th and 5th grade.

Some people never grow up (he didn’t win, woo hoo, and no I’m not bitter). Anyhow, I digress…
Anyhow, as of the last few weeks, my son has been giving me some nicknames. I’m not sure how I feel about them. One of them is sorta cute. It’s Lappy. I guess because he likes to sit on my lap. the other one I am not to fond of. It’s Salami. I guess it is because it rhymes with Mommy. Mommy - Salami. Ugh.
Of course he has a few nicknames, too, that aren’t any better. Some of which we don’t use anymore, and some have stuck around a while. His name is African and unusual in this country, so most of the old people in the neighborhood can’t pronounce his name right so I just tell them to call him Mr. T.

I don’t think he has any idea who this guy is.
When he was younger we gave him a few names that were transitory. When he was just a few weeks old it was Mr. Bobble Head and when he kept biting it was Mr. Bitey and the inevitable nickname of all babies, Mr. Poopy Pants. Mr. No Sleep, well we still use that one. He still doesn’t sleep much.
There is also Mr. Irrational Exuberance, for when he is manic, and my new favorite, since he is so into dinosaurs, Crankosaur, for for when he is tired and cranky. On occasion I do use my my mother’s old nickname for me, Buttinsky, since he is always in the middle of whatever I am doing. However I will probably do what my mother did and shorten it to Binsky, but before he figures out what it means.

Care to share any especially funny nicknames?

Friday I had the tear duct surgery on my eye. As surgery goes, it was pretty minor, but I’m of the opinion that any kind of surgery is not minor. I have no idea how these people get elective surgeries like nose jobs and boob jobs!
It’s amazing what they can do with the human body these days. I now have a tube in my right eye, running from my top tear duct, down to my bottom tear duct, and making a loop somewhere inside my nose. Kind of like this:

The tube, which you can see about 1/4 inch showing if you have good eyesight, will be removed in several months, creating a new place for my tears to drain, to get around the obstruction. So, I won’t have tears pouring down my face anymore. Kinda cool, kinda gross… if you care to read about it here.
The drag is, I still have tears running down my face. Tomorrow I will call up and find out if I have to wait until the tubes come out to see if this damn thing is going to work. And something happened to my left duct, which is partially blocked, when the surgeon tried to unblock it, or something (who knows, I was knocked out). That’s the eye that I didn’t get the tube put in… and now I have a black eye on that eye.

Now, instead of people looking at me thinking, “Is she crying?” they are looking at me thinking “Is she crying? And who punched her in the eye?”

Why blog and stuff, when you can waste time just popping balloons.

It’s a great stress reliever, and an incredible waste of time, and somewhat addictive. And something to do when you don’t feel like writing, painting, or… thinking.

One of my dear friends has a strange obsession with curtains… nearly a curtain fetish.
She is always looking for the “ultimate” curtains. She has gone through so many sets for her living room that they pile up in her basement. I think she has finally settled on a set of curtains for her livingroom… maybe.
As for me, I seem to have a problem for the color of my kitchen. Today I painted it, again. A nice unoffensive shade of off-white, kind of the color of melted vanilla ice cream. Vanillin, probably named that by some queeny interior decorator guy, as most of the colors have foofy names. Vanillin is a color that hardly anyone could argue with. But it has taken about 8 years to get to this point. That’s right, 8 years.
You’d think… I have been doing painting since the mid-90s; I have a degree in art; my husband studied art for years; he’s been a painting contractor for more years; we are both artists, we should be able to pick something for a kitchen, right?
Nope.
Of course my husband and I over the years have had very different visions for the house. His initial impulse is always to paint everything bright white. that is fine, but hey, I’m a woman and I want a little but of something to the walls here. Sure, artwork looks best on a white or gray wall, but let’s have a little homey ambiance, right? This is one of the few things I miss about being single — being able to decorate my way without negotiating everything.
My husband and I tried out so many colors over the years on one particular wall, that an archaeologist examining the wall 200 years from now would have a field day psychoanalysing our house’s former residents. It was bright blue. Cobalt blue. It was “Zendo” brown. It was orange. And we argued about it. We threatened each other with calling up an interior decorator about it.
Then we settled on a rosy brick color. That was a couple of years ago. And we got sick of it. There was something just a bit too… I don’t know… PeptoBismol-y about it? It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t… THE color.
So we decided to paint it white. But what white? That took days. I painted it white and didn’t like the shade of white.
And then my husband gave up and said “Whatever you want dear,” which made things a little easier and I picked a color that I liked and he could tolerate.
Vanillin.
He gets to pick the living room color. And damn I am not painting this kitchen again. I better love it for the next 8 years.

This coming weekend I will be attending something a bit out of the ordinary for me. I’d read about these kinds of parties on other weblogs, but I’d never been to one. It’s a Slumber Party, and no, it’s not like those childhood slumber parties you went to as a kid, except the fact that it is all girls. I think it is more like a tupperware party, except the products are X-rated and don’t keep your food fresh.
Really this not my thing so much, I’m such a vanilla person. I really have no need for a $90 vibrator shaped like a dolphin, or creams and potions. But as one of my friends said, “It will be a hoot”, and this person begged me to go. So I will go, and probably have a good time. I imagine I will be sitting around with giggling gaggle of geese, passing around the Tickle His Pickle Book and snickering along with the rest of them.

The other night I thought I would do something humorous and silly, so I drew a crude diagram of my husband’s brain.

Anyone who knows my husband will have to decide on it’s accuracy. Notice the large dedication to Art and Religion and Ravens Football. I almost didn’t put baseball in because I think he has given up on the Baltimore Orioles.
Of course then he had to draw a diagram of my brain after that:

Some of it is accurate in my opinion, but some of it isn’t. I really don’t think about who’s gay very much. And I talk on the phone as much as the average woman. But it’s true, I do know a lot of 80’s music lyrics.

I think I have more than my share. In rough chronological order:

1)In 3rd grade, I went miniature golfing and, while chasing a ball that had gone down a hill, fell off an 8 foot wall into a stone-lined pool with a couple feet of water in it, and a fountain. Bruised and soaked, I managed to still place 3rd at the birthday party.

2)Also in 3rd grade, walked into the boys bathroom by mistake at my elementary school. Thankfully didn’t bump into anyone in the bathroom, but got caught by an older kid leaving who gave me a hard time about it. Had no idea what the urinals were for.

3)At some point in early elementary school, as we were leaving a family restaurant with my parents, I noticed two other girls giving me the evil eye and decided to give them the evil eye back, smugly. Until I realized that I had toilet paper hanging out of my pants in the back.

4)At another point in elementary school, one day I was running bathwater for my bath. Realizing that all the clean towels were in the laundry room, my entirely naked self darted out to the laundry room, to get a clean towel… only to realize that the teenage boy living next door and his mother had decided to drop in for a visit.

5)In late elementary school, the girl who had no little brother and who had never babysat a little boy or had seen one naked, asked a carpool full of girls “What are BALLS?” “You don’t know what BALLS are?” they skoffed. And no one would tell me!

6)In junior high, I was elected “most gullible” of my yearbook.

7)As a freshman in high school, I got my tongue stuck in my braces. It took about a half hour to get them unstuck in the nurse’s office.

8)In the mid-nineties I went on a date to Ferry Bar Park (which is on the bay). We were lying on a blanket making out on the beach, until we noticed we were being bitten by hundreds of sand fleas. Bitten all over our bodies, I had over 50 bites on one foot alone. I had an allergic reaction to the bites and swelled up so much that had to go to the doctor to get oral steroids for the bites. (And the guy totally wasn’t worth the bites, that loser).

I can only think of 8 right now (at least that I feel comfortable revealing publicly) but I know there are way more.
So what about you? Any you care to share?

Despite my last bitter-sounding post, my Valentine’s day has been pleasant, snowed in with my family. Roses and Chocolate for me, and chocolate and valentines for my two men. Hubby is being absolutely sweet and so it the little man. And I did what I do whenever I am snowed in - I baked. I made a chocolate pie.
T spent the morning holding the valentine I made, and thanking me profusely (gee! it was so easy!) and crawling around with it. Crawling, because last night he somehow hurt/twisted his ankle and hasn’t been walking on it today, and it hurts him to put pressure on it. Poor guy. It has been disconcerting, but it isn’t swollen. The doctor told us to give him ibuprofen and if it isn’t better by tomorrow, then he will be off to an orthopedist. That is, if I can get out of here, due to the ice.
Our goal then tomorrow is to get out of our snowed- and iced-in street alley, in case I need to take him to the doctor.
On another note… I have, what else but pink eye for the 4th time in the last 12 months! So, if you see a woman who looks like she is stoned and crying with a gimpy boy spinning wheels in the snow… you will know it is me.

Update 2/15: Thankfully boy is walking again (sigh of relief) and unfortunately suffering from a wicked case of cabin fever, literally bouncing off the walls.

I think it is funny how people put “avatars” of themselves on their web pages that don’t look much like the photos that are up on the pages. The avatars usually look much better - thinner, younger, more put together. Avatars don’t have under eye circles, wrinkles, stretch marks, and under-arm flaps (they have plus-size avatars at Yahoo, but they aren’t morbidly obese, just slightly plus).
However, I think I have come up with an accurate resemblance of my current appearance in my Yahoo Avatar. Wanna see? (more…)

I did a really dorky thing. Wanna hear about it? Sure, you do.
I installed the Smart Bookmarks Bar for Firefox which makes your bookmarks bar look like this:

Just favicons and no words, unless you mouse over the bookmarks.
and then I installed Favicon Picker 2 so I could assign icons for the stuff on my toolbar that doesn’t already have an icon. I even made some 32 x 32 icons with photoshop.
Yes I know, I am a total geek… not necessarily because I did it, but because of the love of the way my bookmarks bar looks.
I am ready for my Star Wars Fan Club Membership now.